What if our oldest president’s legacy was uplifting the youngest Americans?

The grim figure blocking President Biden’s path to a second term isn’t Donald Trump: It’s Father Time.  

As Biden launches his 2024 campaign at age 80, nearly 7 in 10 registered voters say he is “too old for another term.”   

Reassurances that the president’s stiff gait “has not worsened since last year” aren’t going to change that. But there is a winning strategy hiding in plain sight: Embrace an agenda that prioritizes America’s youngest citizens. 

Biden is old, but his platform doesn’t have to be.   

The political benefits are clear. Biden’s support is weakest among the youngest Democrat voters: Only a quarter of those under 45 say they will “definitely” support him in the general election. The president needs to energize this block to capitalize on his incumbent status. And centering his campaign on young people can help counter perceptions that he is over the hill and out of touch. 

Yet, the real upside of a youth-first agenda is to the nation as a whole. Focusing our resources on young people is the surest way to achieve the strong America we all desire because the major challenges we face as a country are most effectively and cheaply addressed by engaging in prevention and targeted childhood interventions.   

When it comes to combatting poverty, promoting health, reducing crime and encouraging productivity, there is no “free” option. You pay pennies on pre-K, prenatal care and family support or many dollars on prisons, heart disease treatments and unemployment initiatives. It’s not about choosing kids over the elderly: It’s about providing all children with what they need to thrive so that they require far less — and contribute far more — when they get old.   

Drawing our attention to kids also promotes wise policy because the things that tend to harm children — from pesticides to solitary confinement to truck exhaust — also tend to harm adults, but since kids are more sensitive, attending to them allows us to catch threats we might otherwise miss, to the benefit of all.  

Part of the practical appeal of a child-first platform is that it applies to every area of policy and provides a unified and galvanizing plan of action. It is not another beige campaign slogan — “Stronger Together,” “Build Back Better,” “Finish the Job” — designed to be meaningless and unoffensive. It’s a rallying cry and a substantive plan for governing. 

Here are just a few of the key planks: 

• Lower the voting age in federal elections. The case for youth enfranchisement is strong. Research supports the capacity of adolescents to vote and the value of their experiences and perspective in shaping the direction of our country.   
• Create a new federal agency focused on the whole child. We need a single, independent entity to promote children’s interests and to consolidate efforts currently spread across the government.  
• Adopt child impact assessment as a core part of government processes. It makes sense to ensure that lawmakers and regulators consider whether new policies and acts advance the well-being of children.     
• Increase estate and other wealth taxes to fund investment in all children. We cannot deliver the American dream of upward mobility until we commit ourselves to a different model of inheritance: one grounded in investing in our shared future, not preserving dynastic fortunes.  
• Ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. America is the only U.N. member that has not ratified the convention and it’s past time to join the global community in ensuring children’s rights. 
• Lower the age of federal jury participation. It is unconscionable that we regularly deem those younger than 18 mature enough to be tried as adults while denying every minor the opportunity to serve as a juror on the grounds of immaturity. 
• Provide a federal guarantee to free high-quality education. Unequal schools are a path to a weaker nation and we cannot rely on states and localities to remedy the injustice.  
• Establish generous paid care leave. We must cease being an outlier among the wealthiest nations in the world and embrace the evidence of the value of supporting childcare.  
• End the incarceration of fit parents of minor children. Separating kids from their parents as the standard default in the criminal justice system produces a cascade of negative effects for society far outweighing any benefits. 

A platform like this can provide the Democrats with what they have been searching for since the end of the Obama presidency: a concrete, accessible and appealing vision for the future of our country.   

And it answers the question that Biden poses in his first campaign video: “whether in the years ahead, we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer.” As he intoned, “Every generation of Americans has faced a moment when they have to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedom. Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights.”     

The rights of this moment are children’s rights — ensure them, and our collective prospects are bright.

Adam Benforado is a law professor at Drexel University and the author of the new book, “A Minor Revolution: How Prioritizing Kids Benefits Us All.”